Crafts, Crochet, Quilts and Custom Creations

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Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays! I love dressing up and making costumes.Last year we had the opportunity to dress up when it wasn’t Halloween. One of our friends had an ABC (Anything But Clothes) Party and I had a lot of playing cards around…

Most of my costume crafting is done very very last minute and without a lot of planning, and yes, that has come back to bite me in the ass once or twice. Although I don’t have pictures of the construction I can pretty much tell you how I made these. I cut out all of my pieces from muslin and ironed on a fusible interfacing. Then I laid out all of the cards in the order that I wanted them and ironed them on. I did this one column at a time and I did it before I sewed any pieces of fabric together. After all of the cards were ironed on to the fabric I sewed diagonal lines in both directions across each card. This kept any corners from peeling and also allowed us to sit in our costumes without worrying about cards falling off.

My outfit consists of an under-bust corset with metal rivet holes in the back and then I made a three piece wrap skirt (three trapezoids). I couldn’t quite find a way to cover my whole top with cards without making a potato sack looking dress, so the t-shirt with strategically placed straight flushes had to do. They were hot glued together and then glued onto safety pins and then affixed to my shirt. We each had a pocket on our clothes made out of an empty card box. Mine was on my skirt and the MANs was on his vest.

I made the pattern from my husbands shorts based on a pair of board shorts. If I did it all over again I might take a little bit more time on the crotch area as it seemed to bunch weird, but he wore it like a champ and won best costume amongst all of the men there. I made his vest and short pieces the same way that I made the fabric for my skirt and corset.

I really loved the way these turned out, and both costumes are sitting around waiting to be revisited.

Sam Adams and Saint Pauli’s Girl – Our forever Bar Hopping Halloween Costumes. I made this set for my husband. I used Butterick Pattern 3072 I used Gabardine that I found at our local discount fabric store for about $3/yard and found the buttons for his vest there as well. I lined the vest with muslin (again, last minute, not enough planning, I wish I would have lined it with darker fabric). I have purchased the wool to make the coat that is shown in the pattern too and oh he is just waiting for me to pick up that fabric again.

I was lucky enough to be gifted a German Dirndl (which I had a friend quickly hem about 18″ off of the minute it was in my possession). I did make the shirt to wear underneath it from a very simple pattern and white eyelet fabric.

I’m not quite sure yet what we will be wearing this year, but its getting close and I’m sure I will end up in freak out mode sometime soon here!

Wow. I cannot believe how productive of a month I am having. I mean, I really set out to have one, but I am actually doing it, lists are getting crossed off, projects are being completed, rooms are being cleaned, and life is improving.

On Satruday I went to a birthday party for my friend Jenny’s daughter’s 3rd birthday. What a trip that my friend has a 3-year-old, but, of course I did not plan ahead of time and had no gift as of Friday night at 5. Sooo… I got my shift covered at the pizza place and headed to Joann’s. Oh my gosh, it has been almost 3 whole months since I purchased any fabric. It was hard to go in there and get back out only buying what I needed… oh the pretties…

Six and a half hours later I came out of my sewing room with these two items. The dress is a McCalls pattern. I made it in a size 5 because Miss Mackenzie is tall and is already wearing a 4T. The purse is just a freehand project, both the princess fabric and the purple lining are sparkley.

This was finished before the holidays but it was the last gift I gave out. I can finally post the pictures. I made three of these sets, with different colors and themes, but all of the others were made last minute… so there are no pictures.

The pattern is the Flirty Skirty from The Apron Lady Sewing Designs http://www.weekendkits.com/apron-lady-flirty-skirty-pattern.html They worked up super quick and I made matching oven mits for each apron and everyone seemed to love them. Now I just need to make myself one… haha… perhaps after I clean my sewing room. It is once again a mess.

of what I have been up to. For some holiday gifts this year I made some pot holders/hot plates for a few family and friends. I used some of Jennifer Ofenstein’s patterns. I really like the way that they turned out. They were quick, easy, fun, and well received. I also managed a few aprons and matching oven mits. I only took a picture of one of the sets and that gift has still yet to be given… but I will post pictures of them as soon as I give the gift.

WOW! Halloween was a blast this year. A little busy, but, all in all, good fun. The last few days I felt a cold coming on, but refused to accept it. Well… today I was forced to deal with it and am at home from work drinking fluids and watching bad TV.

I figure I will get my Halloween pictures posted before everyone switches into Christmakkah mode. I worked hard on our costumes this year, and am really happy with the results. I made the shirt for my dirndl and I made the vest and pants for the MAN’s Sam Adams costume. They were the perfect costumes for bar hoping as all of the drunks recognized the pair of us. 🙂 Our friends were the Leg Lamp and Ralphie from a Christmas story and an Oompa Loompa.

We had a fantastic time. There are 4 bars in Old Town Orange, in the Circle/Plaza so we did a mini crawl with our little group. The bartender at Haven Gastropub gave us free shots (under the condition that our Oompa Loompa friend danced for 20 seconds while the rest of us sang a song for her. FUN! The Oompa Loompa was super popular and everyone wanted to take pictures with her. The leg lamp rocked in the costume contest at Paul’s Cocktails and won third place. At O’Hara’s Pub a little person came up to the Oompa Loompa and accused her of stealing her costume. It was definitely a good laugh for all. Nothing too exciting happened at the District Lounge, but there was definitely some good music to be had.

My HP pumpkin. I used Jennifer Ofenstein’s HP block pattern (can be found at http://www.sewhooked.org) with a few modifications so that the pumpkin pieces would stay in the right spots.

Aaaanyways, I have been somewhat reluctant to share my videos on this blog because it is so public. At this point though, what the hell. Most people know how nutty and nerdy I am. Perhaps what you might not know is how many times I can say “Um” in 8 minutes. Being in front of the camera makes me nervous… what can I say?

Okay, so you want to know I have online crafty friends, why can’t I make crafty friends near my home? Weeeell… it seems that the average age of crafty/quilty/crocheting women is about 52. While I can get along with 52 year old women fairly well, it is nice to be involved with a crafty group that I have a bit more in common with.

This video is a response to Jennifer’s weekly video, which you can get to by going to the youtube page and clicking on the link right under my video, which reads: This is a response to: Talk To Me Tuesday – Pigtails!

The lion on the front is Jennifer Ofenstein’s Gryffindor pattern and can be found a http://www.sewhooked.org. I think I have a few more of these to make, but for now, here are some photos of my most recent.